What do you say about a record which (at least occasionally) makes you cringe and recoil because some of the sounds on it are just so abhorrent, but it isn't so bad that the idea of listening to it doesn't always make you die a little inside? How does one say, “This record is bad, but not so bad that it's impossible to make one's way all the way through it?” How does one explain that, somehow, a record manages to straddle the line between being emotionally pregnant and totally devoid of feeling? None of these questions is easy to answer, but equally difficult to answer is the question of how good or poor Tragic Care Folly & The Hunter is. On one hand, there are moments and sounds on this album which are genuinely terrible, but at no point will a listener be able to justify turning it off before the record ends. The reflex to push through the album and make it to the end after starting – to find the definitive reason why the record is awful – is perfectly overpowering.
Listeners will be able to get a sense of just how disconcertingly flavorless Tragic Care is from the moment “Watch for Deer at Dawn” opens the record. There, singer Nick Vallee wisps and whimpers out vocal melodies in a tone which rivals that of Peter Cetera for tedium in its emotional outpouring while he, bassist Christopher Fox and drummer Laurie Torres dribble out a dreamilke and tepid folky stream which is even and flat and transparent as a pane of glass. Simply said, it is perfectly devoid of character but, because there is no one thing about it which stands out as being impossible to ignore, listeners will let it go; waiting for something unforgivably bad to happen so they can dismiss the band.
…And they wait. “Vultures” offers the laughably bad image of heartbreak “reaching deep in my pores” with a dreamlike melody which is bad, but not perfectly condemnable. The title track is boring and drones horribly with pump organ and cheap keyboard sounds up front and the drums nearly trip over themselves completely (if the did, this review would be over right here) as they wander their way along, but that's not enough to make anyone want to shut the record off. Even the ravingly pedantic fare of “Moth in the Porch Light” (see lines like “You manifest what I see and try/ plunder, take and endure the violence of our romantic and foolish notions/ I guess it figures, the woman ruins”) isn't really enough to convince listeners that they'd be wise to cut their losses and turn Tragic Care off; it's not good, but not so bad that it's impossible to think something better may come along. That thought will carry through the impossibly “anti-dramatic” closer “Our Story's End” and, while the record doesn't improve at all at any point, listeners will still be hard-pressed to call the effort it took to listen wasted; Tragic Care is not good but, somehow, there is promise in it and the chance that they'll get better seems very real, all along the way. Not all listeners are so patient, but I can say that I'll be back to hear what Folly & The Hunter has to offer listeners when they issue a follow-up to Tragic Care. I say that knowing I won't be alone; all those who hear this record will be curious to see what comes next.
Artist:
www.follyandthehunter.com/
www.myspace.com/follyandthehunter
www.facebook.com/Follyandthehunter
www.twitter.com/follyhunter
www.follyandthehunter.bandcamp.com/
Album:
Tragic Care is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
